Did U.S. ignore tip from the Indians that bin Laden was hiding near Pakistani capital?

An Indian living in the West writes:

According to a story in Times of India, India had twice told the U.S. about Osama’s likely presence close to Islamabad.

LA replies:

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s true. The story could be coming from Indian officials who have their own axe to grind. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. U.S. intelligence could have been so locked into the idea that Osama was hiding in the mountainous border region (like Chief Moose being locked into the idea that the Beltway Sniper had to be a white man) that they automatically dismissed reports that he was in Pakistan, that is, until they got hard information indicating that it was true, namely that the courier al-Kuwaiti was visiting the Abbottabad compound.

ILW replies:

They may have initially found the idea of Bin Laden hiding near Pakistan’s capital city too fantastic to be true (as this would imply collusion of the higher echelons of their Secret Service and Military with Al Qaeda). I think a lot of warnings from India were ignored for a long time by Americans because it was easy for Americans to suspect them to be self-serving propaganda.

This is a good article on Pakistan.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 04, 2011 05:53 PM | Send